


all before has been a mean sleep

by Zagzagael



Category: The Originals (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-25
Updated: 2017-09-25
Packaged: 2019-01-05 12:40:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 458
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12190176
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zagzagael/pseuds/Zagzagael
Summary: S4.1 - Elijah doesn't want to sleep.





	all before has been a mean sleep

He couldn’t bear the thought of lying down. Again. That first week. Eventually, he knew, he would be able to climb into bed with her, pull her lithe body into his arms, one hand gentling the back of her head down onto his chest, and close his eyes to drift. But for now, the very thought was antipathetic and slightly nauseating. He had been coffined before, of course, but this time it had been different. This time he spent five years in a state of longing and lust, his mind filled with her voice, his body filled with desire. And the confines of his death, the satin-lined box, had become claustrophobic. He knew he would have to be destroyed, torn limb from limb, before he allowed his body to be laid down inside a casket again any time soon.

So, he stood, or he walked. He sat through the night watching her sleep. He was hungry for wakefulness. 

The waking world seemed more alive to him. He was continually squinting his eyes, trying to take in small, narrowed slices of it. Her cheekbone, the curl of her hair down her back, the slope of her spine and a shoulder blade, the rise of her hipbone, the broken belt of skin beneath the flat of her belly, a knee, her dimpled smile, and her gaze on him hot and loving. A joy to give and to receive. That was it, the waking world was a thing of utter joy. And relief.

He couldn’t keep his hands to himself. That was new. Usually reserved in his elegant bearing, now he was reaching for her shoulder, her lower back, Klaus’s arm, the back of Becca’s hand, the head of this amazing child, the bannister, the bedding, a warm mug of sweetened coffee. He couldn’t stop listening, birdsong, the child happily humming, Klaus’s low-pitched voice as he read a bedtime story, and Hayley’s indrawn breath as he pulled her higher and higher and higher with him into the experience of their joined bodies. He couldn’t stop tasting, good champagne, a long blade of grass missed by the cutter, the sweat of her skin and the tang of her blood. He couldn’t stop looking, into her eyes, at the gathering of his family. 

It was all a vitality for him, a continual drawing of breath. He had never been one to lament existence, not prone to philosophical melancholia, but this new awakening was a thing of absolute appreciation. He had lived too long to believe that time would stand still for them in this place of tranquility. But he had lived long enough to know that one should hold fast when one’s arms and one’s heart have been filled with life and living.


End file.
